


All Transactions Final

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dark, Gen, Implied Pairing, M/M, Retelling, The Gift of the Magi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his return, Sherlock and John fumble around the divide between them. All either of them wants is for the other to be happy. </p><p>It's been said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Transactions Final

In the wake of Sherlock’s return, something was broken between him and John. He had never thought he would be able to easily slip back into his own life, but this was something else. John had never expected his return, but even if he had he would have anticipated change.

There was a gulf stretched between them, but rather than acknowledge it and express how much it scared them to think of being separate again, they kept mum. To John it seemed as though Sherlock just didn’t give a damn about his only friend or the life he’d left behind. To Sherlock it seemed as though he had lost his only friend and the life he’d left behind, and there was absolutely no way to fix the situation. They danced around each other like perfect strangers. It was untenable on both ends.

Christmas time came for the first time since Sherlock’s return, and the atmosphere of 221B was charged. Both men, desperate not to lose each other but unable to reach out, were at an impasse. They both left it until the last minute to go out and find gifts, even though they had both been thinking about it for the bulk of the month. John and Sherlock had moved for the door to go out at the same time. They had a moment, a brief release of the tension of the previous months, as they shrugged into their coats and scarves knowing what the other was going out to do without having to ask. Sherlock shot John a shy smile, and had it returned as an embarrassed grin. Things were breathtakingly easy for a moment, and a moment was all they needed to shore up their respective resolves to do what had occurred to them at the last moment to do.

Outside the door, they went in opposite directions.

John was the first to arrive at his destination. He’d learnt of it as a rumor from the acquaintance of an old RAMC mate of his, something of an urban myth. There was a woman who made Deals. Capital “D”. Bizarre stuff, unthinkable things. John reached her front step approximately fifteen minutes before Sherlock would reach her back, but it was all the time he needed.

The woman didn’t look much at all like what he’d expected from the rumor. He thought she should have at least done a gypsy wardrobe of some sort, decorated the modest shop into which they stepped after she let him in with candles or incense or something. The only indication she ran a business at all was a small sign in the hallway near the sitting room which read "ALL TRANSACTIONS FINAL". They settled at a utilitarian table in her rather cramped kitchen, and she made them both tea with the same kind of kettle John had back in 221B. She also forewent any kind of ceremony.

“Doctor John Watson, was it? What kind of Deal do you want to make?” she asked.

John had thought long and hard about this, about what he could get for Sherlock that would truly mean something. Despite his triumphant return after dismantling a global criminal network and his name being officially cleared, Sherlock hadn’t so much as got a lead on an infidelity case in almost a year. John knew the lack of work was driving him _literally_ insane. He no longer played violin at 3:00 AM, but that was mostly out of an effort to respect the unspoken divide between them which a row would breach, and not in the way either wanted. Otherwise, John knew he would have been sawing away at all hours trying to release his pent-up energy and frustration. It was killing him to sit in their flat, unneeded, collecting dust like some fascinating insect specimen. His brain was rotting, and the only thing he truly seemed to treasure at all anymore was his mind.

“I need a mystery,” John began. “Bespoke for Sherlock Holmes. Something that will put to work that bloody great mind of his and make him happy.”

The Dealer tapped her bottom lip thoughtfully with the edge of her teacup before taking a sip. “I can have a mystery made such as will keep even him ensnared until nearly the day he dies. But what price would you be willing to pay for that?”

“You’ll have to tell me,” John said. “I know you don’t take money, you take… other things. Is there anything I have to offer you that would be a fair bargain?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she replied, without missing a beat. “Your heart.”

John leveled an incredulous look at her over the lip of his cup. “Sorry, come again?”

“Your heart, Doctor Watson. But not your actual heart, you must understand. The organ trade must be lucrative, but it’s not money that gets me by. I mean your figurative ‘heart’. Your emotions and your empathy. Your loyalty and your courage. If you agree to surrender those to me, I will keep your Sherlock completely engaged for as long as he shall wish it.”

“And you can do this?” John asked, disbelief coloring his tone. “That's something you can actually pull off, can you? Just… suck out all my feelings and make up a case for Sherlock out of thin air?”

She took his wrist in one hand and gently rolled it over until her thumb lay on his pulse point. He felt something like exploring the gap where a lost tooth had been with his tongue; a dearth where something had once been. He didn’t really know what that something was, and couldn’t be bothered to feel worried about it. He couldn’t be bothered to feel much of anything, really. With a rush all of his missing feelings returned, registering just for a moment before the makings of an intricate case spilled into his mind. Murder, intrigue, a family legacy and a locked room. Obscure players and chances to prove ultimate deductive skill. A perfect mystery for Sherlock to grapple with, and the briefest glimpse of the wry, satisfied smirk of a job well done.

There was silence in the kitchen for a long minute. John had come back to himself panting, his free hand clenched on the edge of the table and the hand in the Dealer’s grasp trembling limply.

“Will you make the Deal?”

John’s mind was in an uproar. His preservation instincts seemed to be ringing alarm bells and his common sense was weeping. But above everything, the memory of Sherlock’s glassy eyes as he lay on the sofa every empty evening watched him, and he knew what his answer would be.

“Yes,” he gasped. She clenched his wrist in a bone-breaking grip and he screamed.

He left he shop five minutes later by the front entrance again, wondering why he’d come in the first place, and if he’d be able to make himself anything to eat at all when he got back to 221B. It was very likely the kitchen was a no-food-zone again, thanks to his mad flatmate. He grumbled to himself as he trudged on in search of a taxi.

The Dealer had precisely five minutes to eradicate John Watson from her shop. It helped that when she let Sherlock Holmes in she took him to her sitting room, and not her kitchen, but she couldn’t afford to take chances. She escorted him in with a minimum of proximity to the kitchen and the front entrance, and had him ensconced on her sofa while she took a seat opposite. She did not offer to make tea.

“Sherlock Holmes,” the detective introduced himself, stiffly. “I heard of you through my network. It is said you offer… an unusual service.”

“No need to explain,” she cut in. “What kind of Deal do you want to make?”

Sherlock had spent untold hours determining just that. If he could somehow get any kind of gift for John, no matter how far-fetched, what would he choose? The answer for him lay in the culmination of every moment he had spent with John since his return. There was a hollowness in the other man, something he couldn’t scientifically explain but which he’d had labeled as “loneliness” when he finally conceded his lack of experience in emotional matters and sought out Molly to consult. Because their friendship had fallen through and Sherlock’s fall from glory had thrown him directly in the media spotlight, he had become isolated and completely without companionship. The smiles and the down-to-earth warmth and the life in him was bleeding away, and Sherlock found himself just as unwilling to see John die in that way as he had been to see him dropped by a sniper. His heart could not be allowed to decay.

“I need a _soul mate_ ,” Sherlock began, spitting the phrase out like it was bitter on his tongue. “Not for myself, but for my… my friend. Doctor John H Watson. I someone worthy of his heart, who he can treasure and be treasured by in return.”

“Sentiment,” the Dealer said, taking Sherlock entirely off-guard. He seemed poised to spring from his seat but she waved a hand and wordlessly invited him to sit back down. He did so with more hesitance than he had before.

“Don’t get me wrong, Mr Holmes,” she explained. “I was simply saying what was written on your face. You don’t approve, but you can hardly deny him what you think he needs. What I can give to him. I can bring a woman into his life who will fit his every gap, and make him completely whole. They’ll be married within a fortnight and remain that way until Doctor Watson’s death, if he so chooses. Now the only question is the price.”

“Being?” Sherlock asked.

“Your mind.”

The Dealer smiled at the expression of absolute shock which flickered across Sherlock’s face. “Not your literal brain, of course. I mean your wits. And not all of them, I would hardly leave you a vegetable. I just want that extra something you have, your genius. You agree to live and think like the rest of the dull masses, and I will ensure that John Watson never feels sad or alone for another moment in his life.”

“What could possess you to think anyone would accept an offer like that?” Sherlock hissed, eyes wild for a moment as it really hit him what she was asking for.

“Mr Holmes, you’ve already given up everything for your John once. The moment you stepped through my door you were prepared to do it again.”

Sherlock sucked in a breath and in a moment of weakness scrubbed both hands through his hair, feeling cornered. He looked up at her again after a moment with eyes that had lost all of the haughty chill they’d first seen her with.

“You can make that type of deal?” he asked. “You can take my mind from me, and in return find John a companion for life and bring them together from nowhere at all?”

She perched on the sofa beside him and gently prized a hand from his hair. She turned it until his wrist was encircled by her small fingers. He didn’t really have an idea of what she was doing. It was somewhat unnerving for her to be staring at him so intently, and he didn’t know where to look. The room was decorated kind of blandly, and he settled for fixing his eyes on some kind of porcelain dog statue until she finished making whatever point she was trying to make with this exercise. He ruminated on what John was up to. Impossible to guess.

Sherlock nearly wretched as all his senses returned, almost overwhelming him with all the details he had missed in just a moment of normal observation. Then his mind was flooded with images of John and a woman, as kind as he, who he laughed with and prepared meals with and grew a ridiculous mustache for. Who he loved and was delighted by, and who loved and was faithful to him in return, and patient when he had to work late at the surgery until they moved out of the city together and he opened a family practice. A perfect companion in a charmed life, and the briefest feeling of overwhelming warmth.

“Will you make the Deal?” she asked, setting his hand on his knee when he made no attempt to move it. Sherlock considered making a run for the door. He considered killing the Dealer, or screaming, and a few other irrational things beside. But she was ultimately right. He’d made his choice already.

“Yes,” he said. She cupped his face in her hands, and he felt himself slip away.

When he left ten minutes and a string of awkward apologies later, it was through the front entrance. He remembered entering by the back, but couldn’t for the life of him remember the route he’d taken to get there from Baker Street. Instead he waited at the kerb until he could catch a cab and rode home.

Neither John nor Sherlock said a word to each other about what they’d done that night. If they had, they might have discovered the situation’s fatal flaw while their Deals were still fresh in their minds. As it was, they turned in for the night having kept entirely mum.

The Dealer was anything but inefficient. When Sherlock and John’s gifts came the next day, they came in the same package. Mary Morstan stood in their sitting room, hands a-flutter, as she described a case of such intrigue and mystery that Sherlock probably would have ranked it a nine or ten, just a day prior. She was a petite, pale, agreeable woman who favored John with soft looks of interest and laughs at even the worst jokes, which would have been more than enough for John to attempt flirting with her the day before.

Sherlock looked at her blankly when, after a few minutes of awkward silence, she asked if he would take her case.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. Have you contacted the police?”

John saw her out of 221B shortly thereafter. She smiled at him around a heavy sigh.

“Well, that was hardly what I was expecting,” she said. “I don’t know what I’ll do now. Still, I’d like for this afternoon to not have completely gone to waste.”

She scrawled her number on the back of a business card for her private tutoring services, then left with a sweet, “Call me sometime, Doctor Watson.”

John looked at the card for a moment, wondering why on earth he would do that. He binned it in the kitchen when he went back up to the flat to raise holy hell about the collection of dental impressions which had crowded out the tinned goods in the "STRICTLY EDIBLE" cupboard. Sherlock ended up agreeing that it was very odd, at a loss as to what kind of experiment one would perform with them, and would later (after many more rows) end up agreeing that they should stop being flatmates.

Mycroft had the Dealer shot when she opened the door to collect her post the following Tuesday. It didn’t make any difference.

All transactions, once made, were final.


End file.
